


The weight of the sky

by Avidfangirlforlife



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 08:49:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avidfangirlforlife/pseuds/Avidfangirlforlife
Summary: Basically an AU of Regina serving the ancient Greek punishment of holding up the weight of the sky (Atlas' punishment), for loving Emma, a priestess of Artemis and the newest object of Zeus' lust.





	The weight of the sky

Regina had borne the weight of the world upon her shoulders for eons. A lot of the time, she found that she could not recall specifically how much time had passed in this way. She supposed that when so much time had passed, it was no so easy to count each second of every day. Even if she felt them all. Surely it was logical that there came a moment at which they became countless.

With the weight of the sky constantly pressing down upon her, Regina was almost brought to her knees by its’ colossal endlessness. However, that on its’ own was just about bearable. Over time, one could almost learn to brace themselves against the suffocating weight of the sky. It was endless, for sure, but it could be borne. One simply had to lock their knees in place and refuse to bow out from under it.

Long ago Regina had learnt not to let herself bow under the immense burden. That would have been too much like giving the Gods’ the satisfaction of seeing her tormented by her eternal punishment. It was a burden and a torment upon the soul, maddening unto the last, but that on its’ own could be bared.

The part of her punishment that made her grit her teeth and grind them down to nubs were the memories. Every single moment of her former life was imprinted within her mind. Every single moment, in painstaking and vivid detail. Every precious and painful second of it danced through her mind in agonising detail. Colours and thoughts and laughter and people. Anything and everything. In perfect   
clarity.

Before the endless days of her torment had begun, her life had been nothing short of perfect. She had been a hero of the most epic proportions. Songs had been written for her, games held in her honour, feasts put before her. Her name had been one spoken in hushed voices of awe around the Mediterranean world. A prolific cult had been formed in her honour, Regina had enjoyed a life where she was   
worshipped by some and loved by all.

When she had lived, her name had been one that would go down in history. She would be remembered, for great acts of bravery and daring deeds that shocked those whom beheld them to the very core. She should have been destined to live on in stories of what a hero ought to be, surviving generations and living on in glory through the eons.

As it happened, her name had been remembered. Instead of being spoken in reverent tones, hushed in awe, it was filled with scorn. On the earth that she now supported, it was the blackest of insults only used by curs. It was considered to be the vilest of all insults, not suitable for mention around the familial hearth.

She had lived much of her mortal life being loved for the protection she provided. Many had turned to her to save them when all was thought to be lost. She had lived to serve, helping wherever she could. Many had lusted after her and adored her for her astounding levels of beauty. Zeus had managed to increase her torment by making it so that she could feel the poisonous way her name was treated after she was made an example of. He poisoned human kind against her, for a crime that was barely committed.

Yet another nuance to the curse that she suffered under, as if solely holding up the weight of the world were not enough of a task, was that she could feel every emotion felt by human kind. If a living person felt hunger, Regina felt the pangs of it knowing at her stomach. If someone felt loss, Regina wept bitterly, as though the pain were hers. Every last emotion (the good of which lasted only fleetingly, when compared to the bad) pained her beyond words. Each left her more drained than the last and made the world weigh more upon her struggling shoulders.

Still, she could definitively say that this was not the worst part of the curse placed upon her. It was by no means the worst of her lot. Oh no. The worst of it, the thing that she could not bear of her imprisonment, was that she could no longer feel her. And she hadn’t been able to for what she estimated was close to a thousand years.

She could no longer feel Emma’s soul in the way that she had always been able to. She could no longer feel her living and existing, dreaming of a love that she had never felt. Every time her soul had re-entered the living realm Regina had been able to sense it. Every time without fail, the two of them were so intrinsically linked.

Over the years it had happened several times. The pain Regina felt at these times was all the more tangible, but it was something she needed nonetheless. It was something she had always desperately held onto. It was painful, but it was the sweetest kind of pain. When she could feel her beloved existing, it made all the rest of it slightly easier to bear.

It had been so long since it had last happened. So very, very long. Somehow it made her feel her imprisonment all the more acutely, almost like a caged animal. It also made her endlessly weary, as though her very soul had never known a moment’s peace, which it ached for.

As this was not pain enough, Emma’s lives had a tendency to end rather abruptly. Over the years Regina had lost count of the amount of lives her love had ended under messy circumstances. Messy and alone. Emma was always so desperately alone when her soul re- entered the world. Everything that Emma felt Regina felt too, in painstaking clarity.

Every time Emma lived, she spent year after endless year searching for someone to love. Surely, Regina felt as a certainty, people must have loved her, because how could they not? But Emma was not able to and never would love them back. She would spend every life searching for the person that she could love like no other, always restless until she found this. It was the curse that had been placed upon her soul.

When the two of them had first met Emma had been a priestess. Sworn to an obscure cult of Artemis, she had taken a vow of maidenhood. That in itself had not been an issue. The two of them had fought hard to abide by it. It had been a sacred vow sworn to the Goddess and both would have found a way to stay true to it. After all, Regina had been a hero, but she was no brute.

The problem for the two of them had arisen when Zeus had first made evident his interest in Emma. As the two of them had been aware, when Zeus came calling, you did not say no. Any other lover, whether sexual or not, was expected to be thrown to the side until Zeus was done with you. He would not pay attention to any vow. He would certainly not allow it to stand in the way of his amorous advances.

Zeus had begun to pay court to Emma, and Emma had found herself playing the delaying game. The solution that Regina had found was to run. She ran from the woman she knew they loved, because she feared the retribution she and her beloved would have to face if she did not. One should not look at the object of Zeus’ desires with love in their eyes, not if they wanted to live.

She had run to the ends of the known earth, willing herself to snap free of the hold the Priestess had come to have over her. It was almost as if her senses had been overrun by her. Intoxicated did not quite describe the hold the other woman had over her.

Somehow, she had found herself in Asia Minor, so very far away from home. Every night she would dream of the Priestess whom had come so close to being hers and yet was so far. She dreamed of the fierceness of her character, of her steely determination to stay true to the vow she had taken, no matter what. She dreamed of a woman brave enough to stand in the face of Zeus and deflect his amorous advances. At night she would dream and in the morning she would wake, pangs of longing filling her with a pain so real it was almost tangible.

One day she had woken to a pain more real than any other she had felt before. The only way she could describe it was as a pull, almost as if the tether tying her and the Priestess together had snapped taut. When she had awoken it was not yet dawn, but she had stumbled from her bed and started on her journey back.

Returning filled her with both joy and unease. Joy because she would see her beloved again. Unease because she could feel something bad brewing in the atmosphere. Something bad was going to happen and there was little she could do to stop it.

For more than a year she had been running from her feelings, hoping to spare them both from the wrath of the vengeful King of the Gods. So she returned. She travelled home to Emma and found that the pull in her chest eased. Still, she tried her hardest to keep the storm that they could both feel brewing at bay.

The anger of the King of the Gods was growing. Every moment of every day she could feel it. She could not keep herself far away, not indefinitely, so she had returned. In turn, she tried her hardest to build up an emotional barrier. She tried to push Emma away, anything to keep her safe. Anything to save her from the wrath of the Gods.

In the end this had led to a confrontation with the Priestess. Emma asked her why she had returned, if only to torment them both further. She had told Regina that she understood the risks, she was perfectly aware of what could happen, but that she no longer cared. She had told Regina, in no uncertain terms, that she loved her. She had told her she loved her.

Even after all the years that had passed in endless torment, the memory of those words still filled Regina with relish. Emma had asked her, that if she no longer loved her to please leave and not return. Emma had told her that absence would make the whole thing rather easier to bear.

She had told Emma that she loved her, most ardently. She told her of how she had never loved before and she never would again. And the two of them had been drawn together. Upon reflection, she had realised that such a thing had surely been inevitable. The two of them had shared a passionate embrace, and that had been all.

There had been no time for further stolen moments, that was for sure. Zeus had seen to that. The two of them had felt the wrath of the gods almost instantaneously. They had been punished, and most severely. Every time Regina closed her eyes she was haunted by the images of the punishment the gods had inflicted upon Emma.

Zeus had found them and he had been furious beyond all bounds. Emma had not broken her sacred vows, but she was punished as though she had. The pain of the torment she faced still, eons later, made Regina want to weep.

She had been made to watch, from too far away to save her, as Emma was stripped and humiliated. She had been made to watch as her love had been killed. Not once had she cried out. Emma had gone to her death every inch the Priestess. She had been regal and proud and she had held her head high in defiance.

A long time ago, Regina had resigned herself to her never ending punishment. She could bear it, because she had known the love of her life. The only regrets she had, in all of it, was the painful way in which Emma had been made to die and the pain in which her soul recycled itself, always searching for its’ other half.

**Author's Note:**

> This is another piece of work I wrote a long while ago that I sort of updated.


End file.
